


At a Lingerie Store

by misura



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen, Shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-24
Updated: 2011-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-03 08:10:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/379214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"For you? The left one. For me? Tough question."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	At a Lingerie Store

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: Diana and Neal meeting outside of work (ad-libbing here, since I lost the original)

Diana is there to buy either a present for Christie (she deserves it, for putting up with Diana and her long hours and short phonecalls) or a treat for herself - Neal is there for comparable reasons. Allegedly.

"A gentleman never kisses and tells," is what his mouth says, even as his eyes promise to tell all if she asks the right question. (She would trust him to be discrete, she thinks; Neal is not incapable of keeping secrets, per se, even though she reminds herself daily he is very capable of betraying other people's faith in him, has done it for a living, in fact.)

"You're not a gentleman, Neal." She smiles to take the sting out, and because it takes an effort to frown when Neal is smiling. It's her day off; she doesn't feel like making efforts.

Eyebrows arched slightly, then exaggeratedly. If Neal doesn't strike a pose, it's only because he is always carrying himself, always (and by now, perhaps, effortlessly) making an effort.

She turns away deliberately, watching his face not fall out of the corner of her eyes. "So what do you think?" She's passed this way before, window-shopping with a touch of daydreaming.

Christie looks good in lace.

"For you? The left one. For me? Tough question."

She chuckles. Christie looks _very_ good in one of Neal's suits. "So, does Peter know you're buying him a gift for Elizabeth?" One does not gift lacey lingerie to a friend's wife, not even if that friend has a pretty open mind and a sense of humor. (Perhaps especially not then.)

"By way of apology for having missed dinner three nights out of four." A smug smile, indicating that possibly there was some prompting involved - or a reminder, perhaps, that some things are worth apologizing for. Peter made his marriage work before Neal came along; he is a competent husband, loving and loved. Neal's smile slips. "Twenty dollars."

Friendship comes at a price - literally, on occasion. It's not a secret Neal can get money when he wants money, even if all of them studiously pretend otherwise, so that they won't have to also keep the secret of where he gets it.

"Proof of purchase required," Neal says, sounding put upon and wronged and considered capable of things he is more than capable of doing, because Diana thinks he genuinely likes Elizabeth in a way quite unlike the way he genuinely likes Peter, and twenty dollars doesn't buy a whole lot in this store.

Forging a Monet seems a difficult thing to get good at to Diana.

"He'd know," Neal says, but he's not looking at her and his hands are twirling the hat Peter claims she'd like to wear. (Christie thinks it looks good on her.)

"He wouldn't know if you -." There is no such thing as a day off in the FBI - possibly not even when you're only a consultant. There are many words for what Neal can do, but very few of them refer to things a representative of the law should approve of, let alone suggest.

Neal's smile is full of fondness and amusement. "Try making him say the word 'lingerie'."

Granted, it's not in the line _'this receipt has been tampered with'_. "No bet."

Neal licks his lips, quickly, furtively. The point isn't so much to con her, she thinks, as it is to make her feel he'd be very bad at conning her. "It would help if you walked out of here quickly."

"Yes." Christie deserves a gift. She thinks of Neal as a friend. Someone should talk to Peter about appropriate apologetic gifts.

There are other stores.

She doesn't look back when she walks out, even though temptation is hard to resist.


End file.
